WANT TO SEE SOME BLUEBONNETS?

Texas didn't name the bluebonnet, Lupinus texensis, the state flower for nothing.

 In fact it is hard to imagine that they ever thought of having any other plant as their state flower when they began the selection process in 1901. Someone suggested the cotton boll, as cotton was certainly king at the time. Another wanted the prickly pear cactus. In the end it was the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America who put forward the buffalo clover or bluebonnet, Lupinus subcarnosus. And so this diminutive bluebonnet which grows in the sandy soils of the south Texas plains became the state flower. Now began the arguments. Others wanted L.texensis, a far more showy bluebonnet, to be the state flower. It took 70 years before the argument was settled. In 1971 the legislature combined the two species and "any other variety not heretofore recorded" There are actually three more species, L. havardii, L. cocinnus and L. plattensis.

Leaving the house is becoming increasingly difficult as L. texensis takes over every available inch of space smothering everything in its path.

Inside my walls, outside my walls. They are everywhere.

They sure are beautiful.